Digital and Multimedia Commentary Online

A friend’s post on Facebook this weekend expressed their appreciation for a sign at the Women’s March they attended, which stated: “Golden showers bring impeachment flowers.”

I responded, “Perhaps those flowers will be no more real than the made-up showers? Folks might want to put their hopes in something more substantial than some bogus ‘dossier.'”

My friend responded that Breitbart News and Fox News were the only news outlets to label it as bogus, which I chalk up as more a negative reflection on the state of journalism in the US than anything else. Nevertheless, this prompted me to do a bit more research.

The first source I came across was from Forbes and was entitled “The Trump Dossier Is Fake — And Here Are The Reasons Why.” It was written by Paul Roderick Gregory, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, which provides his bio here. Based on his experience and publications, my assessment is that he is certainly qualified to analyze the “dossier,” of which he asserts, “The poor grammar and shaky spelling plus the author’s use of KGB-style intelligence reporting, however, do not fit the image of a high-end London security company run by highly connected former British intelligence figures.” He comments on the overall nature and effect of the document :

We have reached a sad state of affairs where an anonymous report, full of bizarre statements, captures the attention of the world media because it casts a shadow over the legitimacy of a President-elect, who has not even taken the oath of office. For example, the Trump dossier is tonight’s lead item on German state television and on BBC. False news has become America’s international export to the world media. [Bold face added by me for emphasis] 

The writer mentioned the denial of Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, that he had traveled to Prague as stated in the “dossier,” but he failed to provide additional information that was available from other sources. Specifically, DailyMail.com reported on 11 January that CNN had concluded that the Michael Cohen who had gone to Prague was a different Michael Cohen than the one who is Trump’s attorney. In fact, it was Jake Tapper of CNN whose reporting led to that conclusion, and his comments are available here on his Twitter feed.

This reporting of course adds to the speciousness of the document, and when taken with Professor Gregory’s comments, suggests that this thing is one big pile of nonsense as Trump claimed from the beginning. As to my friend’s comment to me that the CIA took the report seriously and briefed “Trump and the Obama administration a couple of months ago,” I don’t see how that adds to the credibility of the document. Indeed, a report in the Washington Post in no way draws that conclusion.

P.S.

Regarding the fact that only Breitbart and Fox have supported Trump in this matter, my conclusion is that this is a simple reflection of bias against Trump. One only has to look at the coverage of the UK tabloid DailyMail.com to get a sense of the other side of the story. Do this search on Google (site:www.dailymail.co.uk trump dossier) for an idea of what else is being said. And don’t think that the Mail’s conservative bias has turned them into Trump sycophants, given that, as reported by the BBC, Melania Trump brought suit against them and a blogger for writing that she had served as an escort in the 1990’s. They have since retracted that claim.

BYU’s The Daily Universe recently conducted a ‘Feel the Bern’: Poll that showed “BYU students prefer socialist Sanders” over all other candidates:

It turns out that the results have been removed, due to objections raised that pointed out that there was no way to guarantee that respondents were actually students at BYU. (You can read the Editor’s note here.) Removal was the right thing to do, but I regret to say that I would not be surprised that BYU students could in fact respond as this poll suggested they did.

Two friends alerted me to this poll, one of whom is a former colleague from BYU and the other was a colleague when I taught at the US Air Force Academy. Neither of the two is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but they are both aware of BYU and its core beliefs. The former BYU colleague asked in an E-mail regarding the survey, “How do you explain this?” and the colleague from USAFA tweeted, “What’s happening @ BYU?” along with a link to the Universe article.

My tweeted response was this, “The same that is happening everywhere else: Kids are brainwashed, if not at BYU, before they arrive here & by media!” I provide below a somewhat longer response to these inquiries.

Given that BYU students represent a broader cross-section of the United States than many might believe, I would only find it slightly surprising that so many could support a socialist for president than do so many college students across the nation. Unfortunately, we see from a poll commissioned by YouGov.com, that “36% of Americans under 30 have a positive view of socialism, while 39% have a positive view of capitalism.” On the other hand, for those over 65, only 15% view socialism favorably, with 59% liking capitalism. The only way I can explain that switch is to point a finger at what is being taught (or not taught) in our schools.

While the opinions of BYU students are no doubt influenced by what they are taught in school, I am still surprised at the number of young people in the LDS community who have a positive view of socialism. I see comments on Facebook and elsewhere that suggest that many believe socialism to be the world’s answer to Christian concern for one’s neighbor. Forgotten there, of course, is the fact that Jesus Christ has always left his followers to choose to help others or to choose not to do so. Indeed, free agency, or the freedom to choose right over wrong, is a key element of all of His teachings. The same cannot be said for socialists, who stand ever ready to use the force of government to take from one to give to another.

My surprise regarding the acceptance that socialism is gaining today is the result of the teachings of our leaders that go back many years, which have alerted us to the dangers of socialism. As just one example, Gordon B. Hinckley, who at the time had been First Counselor to President Ezra Taft Benson, stated in his eulogy at President Benson’s funeral:

I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism. That distaste grew through the years as he witnessed the heavy-handed oppression and suffering of the peoples of Eastern Europe under what he repeatedly described as godless communism.

President Benson was well-known in many settings for his views regarding socialism, and he spoke in General Conference of the value of the Book of Mormon with respect to socialism, “Our families may be corrupted by worldly trends and teachings unless we know how to use the book to expose and combat falsehoods in socialism, rationalism, etc.” In another conference address, he asked, “Would you like to know of the warnings of the prophets about our increasing descent down the soul-destroying road of socialism and what they have told us to do about it?”

My fear today is that not enough is said or taught in our time regarding the evils of socialism.